Why Call Them Back from Heaven Read online

  "Turn it down?"

  "Dan," said Gibbons, gravely, "I have a proposition."

  Frost shook his head. "Don't tell me."

  Gibbons said, "I have to tell you this one. It's one you'll have to decide for yourself. It's too big. I can't decide it for you. I could turn the others dovra for you. I could say you didn't operate that way. But this one I can't. It's for a quarter million."

  Frost said nothing. He made no move. It seemed suddenly that he had turned to stone and through the stoniness rang a shrilling stridence of alarm bells in his brain.

  "I don't know," he finally said, but he only said the words as a cover-up, a chance to still the clapper banging in his skull, to get his thoughts together, to plan some sort of action.

  "It's legitimate," said Gibbons. "I can handle it. Cold cash. No check. No record. Nothing. I can handle everything but the actual payoff. You are in on that." "So I'll be tied to it," said Frost.

  "So you're tied to it," said Gibbons. "Good God, man, they deserve that much for their quarter million. And, besides, they wouldn't trust me with a quarter million. And you'd be crazy if you did. I could turn an awful heel for that kind of money. I couldn't help myself." "And you? What kind of cut…"

  Gibbons chuckled. "None. You keep the loot, every cent of it. Me, I get ten thousand for convincing you." "We'd never get away with it," Frost said, sharply. "I'm sorry, Dan. I had to tell you. I can go back and tell them no. Although, I'd hoped. I could use ten thousand."

  "Joe," said Frost, impulsively, "you've worked a long time with me. We have been friends…"

  He stopped. He couldn't say what he had meant to say. It would do no good. For if Marcus Appleton had gotten to Joe Gibbons, there was nothing he could do about it.

  "Yes, I know," said Gibbons. "We have been friends. I'd hoped you'd understand. And since you bring it up, we could get away with it. Me, it would be no problem for a guy like me. With you it might be a bit more difficult."

  Frost nodded. "Invest the money, then apply for death."

  "No! No!" protested Gibbons. "Not apply for death. A very natural death. Give me ten thousand of the loot and I'd get it done for you. That's the going rate. Very neat and easy. And the investment, of course, couldn't be in Forever stock. Something you could stash away— a bunch of paintings, maybe."

  "You have to give me time," said Frost.

  For he needed time. Time to get it figured out. Time to know what next to do.

  "And if you didn't go for death," said Gibbons, "you could try to bluff it out. You've stopped a lot of them. This one just slipped past. You can't catch them all. No one expects you to."

  "This one," said Frost, "must be a lulu. To rate a quarter million, it would have to be."

  "I wouldn't kid you, Dan," said Gibbons. "This one-would be dynamite. It would sell like wildfire. They figure a seven million mark in the first edition."

  "You seem to know a lot about it."

  "I made them talk to me," said Gibbons. "I wouldn't buy it blind. And they had to talk with me, for I was the only one who could channel it to you."

  "It sounds to me you got in fairly deep."

  "All right," said Gibbons, "I'll give it to you straight. I said a while ago I could go back and tell them no. But it wouldn't work that way. If you say no, I won't go back. Say no and walk away from here and I'll begin to travel. And I'll have to travel fast."

  "You'd have to run for it," said Frost.

  "I'd have to run for it."

  They sat in silence. The squirrel sat up and watched them with its beady eyes, its forepaws hanging limply.

  "Joe," said Frost, "tell me what it's all about."

  "A book," Gibbons told him, "that claims Forever Center is a fraud, that the whole idea is a fraud. There's no chance of second life; there never was a chance. It was a thing dreamed up almost two hundred years ago to put an end to war…"

  "Now, wait!" Frost exclaimed. "They can't…"

  "They can," said Gibbons. "You could put a stop to it, of course, if you knew about it. Pressure could be brought and…"

  "But I mean it can't be right!"

  "What difference does it make?" asked Gibbons. "Right or wrong, it would be read. It would hit people where they live. It's no pamphlet job. This guy takes a scholarly approach. He's done a lot of research. He has good arguments. He has it documented. It may be a phony, but it doesn't look a phony. It's the kind of book a publisher would give his good right arm to publish."

  "Or a quarter million."

  "That's right. A quarter million."

  "We can stop it now," said Frost, "but once it hit the stands, there wouldn't be a chance. Then we wouldn't dare. I can't let a book like that get by. I wouldn't dare to do it. I'd never live it down."

  "You could work it," Gibbons reminded him, "so you wouldn't have to live it down."

  "Even so," said Frost, "they could take retroactive action. They could pass the word along to overlook a certain man when time for revival came."

  "They wouldn't do that," said Gibbons. "Memories don't run that long or bitter. But if you're afraid of that I could go in and clear your name. I could say I knew about the book but that you were knocked off before I could get to you."

  "For a price, of course."

  "Dan," said Gibbons, sadly, "you said a while ago that we were friends. For a price, you say. That's no way for friends to talk. I'd do it out of friendship."

  "One thing more," asked Frost. "Who is the publisher?"

  "That's something I can't tell you."

  "How can I…"

  "Look, Dan, think it over. Don't say no right now. Give yourself twenty-four hours to think about it. Then come back and tell me."

  Frost shook his head. "I don't need twenty-four hours. I need no time at all."

  Gibbons stared at him glassily and for the first time, Frost could see, the man was shaken.

  "Then I'll look you up. You may change your mind. For a quarter million! Man, it could set you up."

  "I can't take the chance," said Frost. "Maybe you can, tut I can't."

  And he couldn't, he told himself.

  For now the clanging clapper was no longer in his skull. Instead there was a coldness far worse than the clanging—the coldness of reason and of fear.

  "Tell Marcus," he said, then hesitated. "No, don't tell Marcus. He'll find out for himself. Hell bust you, Joe, and don't you forget it. If he ever catches you…"

  "Dan," yelled Gibbons, "what do you mean? What are you trying to say?"

  "Nothing," said Frost. "Nothing at all. But if I were you, I'd start running now."

  9

  Glancing through the half-open study door. Nicholas Knight saw the man enter the church, furtively, almost fearfully, with his hat clutched in both his hands and held foursquare across his chest.

  Knight, seated at his desk, with the little study lamp pulled low against the desk top, watched in fascination.

  The man, it was quite apparent, was unused to church and unsure of himself. He moved quietly and unsteadily down the aisle and he cast about him little probing glances, as if he might fear that some unknown and awesome shape would spring out at him from the pooL of shadow.

  And yet there was about him an attitude of worship, as if he might have come seeking refuge and comfort. And this, in itself, was something most unusual. For today few men came worshipfully. The} came nonchalantly or with a calm assurance that said there was nothing here they needed, that they were only paying homage by an empty gesture to a thing that had become a cultural habit and very little more.

  Watching the man, Knight felt something stir deep inside himself, a surge of feeling that he had forgotten could happen to a man—a sense of reaching out, a sense of benediction, of purpose and of duty and of pastoral compassion.

  Of pastoral compassion, he thought And where in a world like this was there any need of that? He had first sensed it long ago, when still in seminary, but he had not felt it since—for there had been no place for it and no need
of it.

  Silently, he rose from his chair and paced carefully and slowly to the door that led into the church.

  The man had almost reached the front of the empty church and now he sidled from the aisle and sat down gingerly in a pew. His hat still was clutched against his breast and he sat forward, on the edge of the seat, his body stiff and straight. He stared straight ahead and the light of the candles flickering on the altar sent tiny shadows fleeing on his face.

  For long minutes he sat there, unstirring. He scarcely seemed to breathe. And Knight, even from where he stood in the doorway of the study, imagined that he could feel the tension and the ache in that straight-held body.

  And after those long moments of tensed sitting, the man rose to his feet and started back down the aisle again, hat still clutched tightly to his breast, marching out of the church exactly as he had entered it. There had not been, Knight was sure, at any time, a single flicker of expression in that frozen face, and the body was still as ramrod-straight, as uncompromising, as it had been before.

  A man who had come inside seeking something and had not found it and now was leaving, knowing now, perhaps, that he would never find it.

  Knight stepped out of the study and moved quietly toward the entrance. But the man, he saw, would reach the door, and be out, before he could intercept him.

  He spoke softly: "My friend."

  The man jerked around, fear etched upon his face.

  "My friend," said Knight, "is there something I can do for you?"

  The man mumbled, but he did not move. Knight moved closer to him.

  "You need help," said Knight. "I am here to help you."

  "I don't know," said the man. "I just saw the open door and came in."

  "That door is never closed."

  "I thought," said the man. "I hoped…"

  His words ran out and he stood dumb and stupid.

  "All of us must hope," said Knight. "All of us have faith."

  "I guess that's it," said the man. "I haven't faith. How does a man get faith? What is there for a man to have some faith in?"

  "An everlasting life," Knight told him. "We must have faith in that. And in much else, besides."

  The man laughed—a low, vicious, brutal laugh. "But we have that already. We have everlasting life. And we do not need the faith."

  "Not everlasting life," said Knight. "Just continued life. Beyond that continued life there is another life. a different kind of life, a better life."

  The man raised his head and his eyes grew hard, like two small points of fire.

  "You believe that, Shepherd? You are the shepherd, aren't you?"

  "Yes, I am the shepherd. And yes, I do believe it."

  "Then what sense does all this make-this continuation? Wouldn't it be better…"

  Knight shook his head. 'I don't know," he said. "I can't pretend to know. But I can't bring myself to question God's purpose in allowing it."

  "But if He allows it, why?"

  "Perhaps a longer life to prepare ourselves the better when our times does come to die."

  "They talk," said the man, "of life forever, of immortality, of no need of dying. Then what's the use of God? We won't need the other life, for well already have it."

  "Yes," said Knight, "perhaps we will. But then we'll cheat ourselves. And the immortality that they talk about may not be something that we want. We may grow tired of it."

  "And you, Shepherd? What of you?"

  "What of me? I don't understand."

  "Which of these other lives for you? Are you freezer-bound?"

  "Why, I…"

  "1 see," the other said. "Good day, Shepherd, and many thanks for trying."

  10

  Frost wearily climbed the stairs and let himself into his room. He closed the door behind him and hung up his hat. He slumped into an old and battered easy chair and stared about the room.

  And for the first time in his life, the poverty and the squalor of it struck him across the face.

  The bed stood in one corner and in another corner a tiny stove and a keeper for his stock of food. A mangy carpet, with holes worn here and there, made an ignoble effort to cover the bareness of the floor. A small table stood before the one lone window and here he ate or wrote. There were several other chairs and a narrow chest of drawers and the open door of a tiny closet, where he stored his clothes. And that was all there was.

  This is the way we live, he thought. Not myself alone, but many billion others. Not because we want to, not because we like it. But because it is a wretched way

  of life we've imposed upon ourselves, a meanness and a poverty, a down payment on a second life—the fee, perhaps, for immortality.

  He sat, sunk in bitterness, half drowsy with his bitterness and hurt.

  A quarter million dollars, he thought, and he'd had to turn it clown. Not, he admitted to himself, that he was above the taking of it, not because of any nobleness, but because of fear. Fear that the entire setup had been no more than a trap devised by Marcus Ap-pleton.

  Joe Gibbons, he told himself, was a friend and a faithful worker, but Joe's friendship could be bought if the sum were great enough. All of us, he thought, with the sour taste of truth lying in his mouth, can be bought. There was no man in the world who was not up for sale.

  And it was, he told himself, because of the price that each must pay for that second life, the grubbing and the saving and the misery that was banked as a stake to start the second life.

  It all had started less than two centuries before— in 1964, by a man named Ettinger. Why, asked Ettinger, did man need to die? Die now of cancer, when a cure for cancer might be only ten years off.? Die now of old age when old age was no more than an ailment that in another hundred years might be susceptible to cure?

  It was ridiculous, said Ettinger. It was a pity and a waste and fraud. There was no need of death. There was a way to beat it.

  Men had talked of it before, had speculated on it, but it had been Ettinger who had said: Let us do something—now!

  Let's develop a technique by which those who die can be frozen and stored away against that day when the maladies of which they died can be treated'medically. Then, when this is possible, revive the dead, wipe away the ravages of old age, banish the malignancy of cancer, repair the weakened heart, and give them all a second chance at life.

  The idea had been slow to gain acceptance, had been ignored by all except a few, had gathered guffaws on television shows, had been treated gingerly by writers who did not want to identify themselves with the fringe of fanaticism.

  Slow to gain acceptance, but it grew. It grew stubbornly as the dedicated few labored day and night to do the necessary basic research, to devise the technology that was necessary, to erect the installations, and to perfect the organization that would hold it all together.

  The years went on and the idea crept into the consciousness of men—that death might be defeated, that death was not an end, that not only a spiritual but a physical second life was possible. That it was there for those who wanted it, that it was no longer just a long-range gamble, but a business proposition with a good chance of success.

  Still no one would say publicly that they were about to take advantage of it, for in the public image it was still a crackpot scheme. But as the years went on more and more made surreptitious contracts and when they died were frozen and were stacked away against the day of their revival.

  And each of those who was stacked away left in trust with the organization built so painfully from nothing, the pittance or the fortune they had scraped together in their lifetime, to be invested until that time when they would be revived.

  There had been a congressional inquiry in Washington, which had come to nothing, and a question had been raised on the floor of Commons, which likewise came to nothing. The movement still was regarded crackpot, but it had the virtue of being non-obnoxious. It did not push itself, it did not foist itself upon the public consciousness, it did no preaching. And while more and mor
e it became a matter of private conversation and of public interest, it was paid no official heed, possibly because officialdom did not know just what attitude to take. Or perhaps because, like the ancient UFO squabble, it was too controversial to touch.

  Just when it happened, or how it happened, or what brought about the realization, no one now could tell-but there came the day when it became apparent that the little movement of 1964, now called Forever Center, had become the biggest thing the world had ever known.

  Big in many ways. Big in the hold it had on the public imagination, which, in many instances, now constituted a firm belief in not only the purpose of the program but in its capacity to carry out the program. Big in the participation in the program, with millions of frozen bodies stored away to await revival. And, perhaps most important of all, big in its assets and investments.

  For all those millions who now lay frozen had left their funds in trust with Forever Center. And one day the world woke to find that Forever Center was the largest stockholder of the world and that in many instances it had gained control of vast industrial complexes.

  Now, too late, the governments (all the governments) realized they were powerless to do anything about Forever Center, if, in fact, they had wanted to do anything about it. For to investigate it, to license, to restrict it in any way would have been flying not only into the face of an entrenched financial position but also into the face of an awakened public interest.

  So there was nothing done and Forever Center became more powerful and more invulnerable. And today, thought Frost, it was the government of the world and the financial institution of the world and the world's one hope.

  But a hope that was dearly paid for-a hope that had made tightfisted moneygrubbers of the people of the world.

  He'd gone without a pint of milk-a pint of milk he'd wanted, a pint of milk that his body had cried out for-when he ate his lunch. And that lunch had been

  two thin sandwiches from a paper bag. And all of this because each week he must put away a good part of his salary in Forever stock, so that during those long years when he lay dead and frozen the funds would multiply by interest and by dividend. He lived in this wretched room and he ate cheap food, he had never married.